HEALTH  SCIENCES  STANDARD 


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HX64099695 
}  .P25  A  physician  on  vivis 


RECAP 


A  PHYSICIAN  m  VIVISECTION. 


EXTRACTS 


FROM 


The  Annual  Address  before  the  American 

Academy  of  Medicine,  Washington, 

May  4,  1891, 


BY 


PROFESSOR  THEOPKILUS  PARVIN, 
M.D.,  LL.D., 

C   JEFFERSON  HEriCAL  COLLEGE,  PHILADELPHIA,  PA., 

IBresitient  of  \\t  Sfcatirmg, 


CAMBRIDGE: 
JOHN    WILSON   AND    SON. 

1895. 


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A  PHYSICIAN  ON  YIVISECTION. 


EXTRACTS 

FROM 

The  Annual  Address  before  the  American 

Academy  op  Medicine,  Washington, 

May  4,  1891, 


BY 

PEOFESSOR   THEOPHILUS   PARYIN, 
M.D.,  LL.D., 

OF   JEFFEBSON   MEDICAX   COLLEGE,  PHILADELPHLi,  PA., 

.i3resiUent  of  tl)e  acaUcmg. 


CAMBRIDGE: 
JOHN    WILSON    AND    SON. 

1895. 


Q?^' 
^a^" 


INTRODUCTION. 


The  following  excerpts  from  the  Pre- 
sidential Address  of  Professor  Theophilus 
Parvtn,  M.D.,  touching  the  subject  of  Vivi- 
section from  the  standpoint  of  a  teacher  of 
Medical  Science,  deserve  a  wide  circulation, 
not  only  in  the  medical  profession,  but  also 
among  all  lovers  of  scientific  progress.  The 
compiler  has  taken  the  liberty  of  marking 
by  italics  several  sentences  which  seem 
worthy  of  special  note,  and  for  such  em- 
phasis he  alone  is  responsible.  It  is  but 
just  to  Professor  Parvin  to  say,  that  this 
reprint  from  his  published  Address  is  not 
made  by  his  authority  ;  but  that  it  has  been 


4  INTRODUCTION. 

undertaken  solely  from  belief  in  the  value  of 
opinions  so  forcibly  and  clearly  expressed, 
and  based  upon  so  many  years'  experience 
both  as  a  medical  teacher  and  as  a  prac- 
tical physician. 


Copies  of  this  pamphlet  ma}^  be  had  through 
the  address  below.  Price,  six  cents  each,  post- 
paid, or  ten  copies  for  fift}'  cents.     Address 

Sec'y  American  Humanitarian  League, 
P.  O.  Box  215, 

Providence,  R.  I. 


OlS"   VIYISECTIOX. 


THE  subject  of  bacteriology  has,  I  believe, 
undue  importance  in  professional  study 
and  teaching.  .  .  .  May  not  a  similar  state- 
ment be  made  in  regard  to  vivisection  ?  My 
belief  is  that  the  value  of  this  method  of  study 
in  relation  to  surgery  and  therapeutics  has 
been  exaggerated.  So  far  as  the  first  depart- 
ment is  concerned,  reference  will  be  made  to 
abdominal  and  to  brain  surgery.  If  Mr.  Tait's 
statement  is  accepted,  —  and  his  authority  and 
ability  none  can  justly  question,  —  vivisection 
lias  been  an  injury,  not  a  help,  to  the  former. 
His  declarations  upon  this  point  have  been 
positive  and  frequent.  One  of  the  most  recent, 
1889,  is  as  follows:  '"'- Instead  of  vivisection 
having  in  any  ivay  advanced  ahdominal  sur- 
gery, it  has,  on  the  contrary,  retarded  it.^"* 


6  ON  WVISECTION. 

Those  engaged  in  brain-surgery  sometimes 
refer  to  the  great  advantages  obtained  by  vivi- 
section in  cerebral  localization ;  but  Dr.  Seguin, 
whose  authority  will  be  admitted,  referring  to 
a  paper  by  Horsley,  makes  tlie  following  state- 
ments :  "  The  author  appears  to  assume  that 
our  progress  in  cerebral  localization  has  been 
mainly  dependent  upon  experimentation.  Here 
again  we  must  differ  from  him.  Clinical  ob- 
servation and  pathological  data  come  first 
(Broca  for  speech-centre,  Hughlings-Jackson 
for  a  hand-centre  and  general  doctrine),  the 
animal  experiments  with  detailed  proofs  by 
Hitzig,  Ferrier,  and  others  long  after ;  and  the 
solid  facts  upon  which  we  make  our  daily  local- 
ization diagnoses  have  been  patiently  accumu- 
lated by  patliologists,  and  would  stand  to-day 
supporting  the  doctrine  of  cerebral  localization 
if  not  one  animal's  brain  had  been  touched. 
Besides,  in  the  case  of  the  visual  half-centre, 
human  pathological  facts  have  overthrown  the 
result  of  experimentation  (Ferrier's  angular- 
gyrus  centre),  and  have  made  us,  for  practical 
purposes,  indifferent  to  the  contradictory  re- 
sults of  Munk  and  Goltz.     It  is  safe  to  say 


ON   VIVISECTION.  7 

that  every  one  of  the  so-called  '  centres '  in 
the  human  brain  have  been  determined  em- 
pirically by  post-mortem  proofs,  independently 
of  experimental  data.  What  animal  experi- 
ments would  have  led  us,  for  example,  to 
locate  the  half-centre  for  ordinary  vision  in 
the  cuneus,  the  centre  for  the  leg  in  the  para- 
central lobule,  and  tliat  for  audited  language 
in  the  left  first  temporal  gyrus  ?  In  this  de- 
partment of  pathology  medical  science  has 
been  strictly  inductive  and  sufficient  unto 
itself,  though  receiving  confirmatory  evidence 
from  the  physiologist.  The  first  (speech)  and 
the  last  (visual)  centres  have  been  discovered 
by  clinical  and  pathological  studies." 

Facility  in  operating  is  one  of  the  advan- 
tages claimed  for  vivisection,  and  the  claim  is 
just.  Nevertheless,  the  animals  thus  used  for 
the  education  of  the  surgeon  ought  to  he  com- 
pletely ancesthetized  during  operations,  and 
killed  immediately  after ^  and  not  left  to  live 
days  of  suffering.  Moreover,  it  should  be 
remembered  that  great  surgeons  have  made 
their  work  intelligent  and  facile  by  operations 
upon  the  human  cadaver ;  the  glory  of  many 


8  ON  VIVISECTION. 

of  our  country's  dead  surgeons  has  never  been 
eclipsed  by  any  of  those  now  living,  no  matter 
how  much  time  they  have  given  to  vivisection. 

What  shall  be  said  of  the  value  of  experi- 
mental therapeutics  ?  The  shortest  and  most 
positive  answer  is  that  given  by  one  of  tlie 
highest  French  authorities,  Dujardin-Beau- 
metz  :  "  Experimental  therapeutics  exist  only 
in  name,  and  will  continue  nominal  until  we 
are  able  to  create  at  will  in  animals  the  dis- 
eases common  to  mankind." 

The  famous  Hyderabad  Commission,  after 
killing  hundreds  of  animals,  chiefly  dogs,  by 
chloroform  anaesthesia,  concluded  that  death 
occurred  from  asphyxia,  and  never  from 
syncope ;  and  therefore  in  the  administration 
of  chloroform  as  an  anaesthetic  to  human 
beings,  the  respiration  only  need  be  observed. 
Dr.  Richardson  shows  that  the  inference  is 
erroneous,  stating  that  "  its  first  failure  arises 
from  the  fact  that  the  reasoning  soul,  as 
Thomas  Willis  calls  it,  is  left  out  of  the  argu- 
ment." Not  only  this,  but  equally  able  and 
eminent  experimenters  with  those  concerned  in 
the  Hyderabad  investigations  have  shown  that 


ON   VIVISECTION.  9 

dogs  may,  when  killed  by  chloroform  inhala- 
tion, perish  from  syncope,  or  from  syncope  and 
asphyxia,  instead  of  from  the  latter  only. 
Differences  of  climate  and  differences  of  dogs 
have  been  suggested  as  explaining  these  differ- 
ent results.  Who  shall  compose  these  strifes  ? 
What  uncertainties  may  belong  to  investiga- 
tions made  by  the  most  skilful^  and.  hoio  umvill- 
ing  should  medicine  be  to  accept  all  conclusions 
of  the  laboratory  as  certain  truth! 

Medicine  does  not  accept  in  all  cases  such 
conclusions.  For  example,  doctors,  relying 
upon  clinical  experience,  give  certain  mercu- 
rials to  excite  the  hepatic  secretion  ;  but  this 
practice  ought  to  have  been  abandoned  long 
ago  when  the  experiments  of  Rutherford 
proved  that  in  dogs  no  such  result  followed. 
Imagine  the  experimental  therapeutist  giving 
a  patient  a  dose  of  calomel,  who  innocently 
asks,  "  Is  thy  servant  a  dog  that  this  drug  is 
given  me  ?  "  The  doctor  of  course  can  reply, 
though  the  imperfection  of  his  method  is  thus 
confessed,  "  No ;  it  is  because  you  are  not  a 
dog  that  I  prescribe  it." 

Some  two  years  since,  Herbert  Spencer  hav- 


10  ON   VIVISECTION. 

ing  suggested  to  Huxley  that  in  case  he  were 
sick  he  would  employ  a  practitioner  who  trusted 
in  the  teaching  of  experimental  therapeutics, 
the  latter  replied,  "  Heaven  forbid  that  I  should 
fall  into  that  practitioner's  hands  !  and  if  I 
thought  any  writings  of  mine  could  afford 
the  slightest  pretext  for  the  amount  of  man- 
slaughter of  which  that  man  would  be  guilty, 
I  should  be  sorry  indeed." 

When  one  reads  the  experiments  made 
upon  animals  with  some  well-known  remedies, 
very  probably  he  finds  no  addition  of  a  prac- 
tical sort  to  his  knowledge ;  he  learns  nothing 
as  to  when,  in  what  doses  and  intervals,  the 
medicines  are  to  be  administered.  Digging 
post-holes  and  fixing  posts  in  them  will  de- 
fine boundaries,  but  do  not  make  a  fruitful 
orchard. 

When  we  consider  that  drugs  do  not  act 
upon  man  invariably  as  they  do  upon  inferior 
animals,  nor  when  thus  acting  they  may  not 
in  corresponding  doses ;  and  that  animals 
differ  among  themselves  as  to  susceptibility  ; 
and  that,  finally,  these  animals  are  not  suffer- 
ing from  the  diseases  for  which  in  the  human 


ON  WVISECTION.  11 

subject  the  remedies  are  to  be  given,  not  in- 
deed afflicted  with  any  disease,  —  if  7nust  he 
obvious  that  there  are  sources  of  fallacy  inhe- 
rent in  the  method^  and  that  false  conclusions 
may  residt. 

Whether  the  good  outweighs  the  evil, 
whether  the  profit  in  this  business  is  greater 
than  the  loss,  must  be  finally  decided,  not  by 
ardent  vivisectionists  who  are  liable  to  become 
intolerant  and  aggressive,  nor  by  zealous  anti- 
vivisectionists  who  may  exalt  sentiment  above 
knowledge  and  reason,  but  by  the  calm,  con- 
tinued observation  and  experience  of  conscien- 
tious, intelligent  practitioners. 

It  seems  to  me  that  the  most  valuable  result 
of  experiments  upon  animals  has  been  in  the 
discovery  of  the  etiology  of  so-called  septic 
infection ;  and  hence  the  means,  whether 
aseptic  or  antiseptic,  by  which  this  great  evil 
may  be  usually  averted. 

Pasteur's  investigations  as  to  the  cause  of 
hydrophobia  and  the  employment  of  preven- 
tive inoculations,  require  longer  observation 
and  experience  for  appreciation.  Koch's 
method   of  cure   of   tuberculosis   rates    much 


12  ON  VIVISECTION. 

lower  than  it  did  a  few  months  ago.  It  is  not 
beyond  the  hounds  of  possibility ^  that  before 
many  years  the  average  results  from  anti- 
hydrophobio  and  anti-tuherculous  inoculations 
will  be  of  such  an  unfavorable  character  that 
they  will  give  one  of  the  strongest  arguments 
against  vivisection} 

There  are  certain  presumptive  arguments 
against  vivisection.  If  tliere  be  a  God  of  love 
and  power,  without  whose  knowledge  not  even 
a  sparrow  falls  to  the  ground,  — '■  a  God  who 
giveth  to  the  beast  his  food  and  to  the  young 
ravens  which  cry ;  who  is  good  to  all,  and 
whose  tender  mercies  are  over  all  His  works, 
—  surely  it  is  not  in  accordance  with  His 
character  and  purposes  that  animals  should 
undergo  cruel  tortures  for  man's  benefit. 

The  animal  creation  has  been  made  subject 
to  man  ;  many  of  them  are  our  dependents,  and 
some  are  capable  of  the  strongest  attachment 
to  human  beings,  and  become  the  most  devoted 
friends.  Even  the  wild  animal  sometimes 
appeals  in  its  distress  for  human  help. 

^  This  was  written  in  1891.  Already,  in  1895,  the 
"  anti-tuberculous  inoculations  "  have  been  given  up. 


ON   VITTSECTION.  13 

What  might  not  all  animal  creation  become 
to  man  if  everywhere  the  law  of  kindness  ruled 
his  action !  Physicians,  whose  very  name 
points  to  widest  sympathy  with  Nature,  ought 
to  be  the  chief  apostles  in  preventing  cruelty 
and  proclaiming  kindness  to  animals  as  the 
duty  of  man,  —  and  therefore  must  take  heed 
lest  the  power  of  their  apostleship  be  weak- 
ened by  needless,  useless,  and  painful  vivi- 
sections ;  for  preaching  and  practice  coincide, 
if  good  effect  comes  from  the  former. 

The  attitude  toward  vivisection  taken  by 
some  of  the  best  men  of  the  age  is  assuredly 
very  hostile.  For  example,  three  of  the  great- 
est poets  of  the  century  —  Tennyson,  Eobert 
Browning,  and  Whittier  —  have  condemned 
it.  Chief-Justice  Coleridge,  PhiUips  Brooks, 
and  Morgan  Dix  are  other  illustrious  men  that 
have  given  severe  censure.  Robert  Browning, 
a  few  years  before  his  death,  said  :  "  But  this 
I  know,  I  would  rather  submit  to  the  ivorst  of 
the  deaths,  so  far  as  pain  goes,  than  have  a  sin- 
gle dog  or  cat  tortured  under  the  pretence  of  sav- 
ing me  a  twinge  or  two.''  Morgan  Dix,  in  the 
course  of  a  letter  written  upon  this  subject  last 


14  ON  VIVISECTION. 

year,  uses  the  following  language  :  "  I  have  read 
accounts  of  the  tortures  inflicted  in  the  name 
of  science  on  the  creatures  committed  to  our 
care  or  placed  in  our  power  by  a  Divine  Provi- 
dence, and  they  have  made  me  sick  at  heart 
for  weeks  together.  I  shall  never  peruse  these 
frightful  statistics  again.  I  have  read  what 
arguments  are  made  in  extenuation  or  recom- 
mendation of  the  practice^  and  their  only  effect 
has  been  to  strengthen  my  conviction  that  man 
is  cafahle  of  becoming  the  most  barbarous  and 
most  merciless  of  all  agents.''^ 

It  is  wise  for  physicians  interested  in  vivi- 
section to  recognize  that  there  is  on  the  part 
of  prominent  women  and  men  in  the  laity  a 
strong  sentiment  of  antagonism  to  experiments 

■  upon  animals  ;  and  therefore  they  should  avoid 
all  such  work  not  promising  certain  benefit  to 
man,  and  anaesthetics  ought  always  to  be  em- 

\  ployed.     I  sometimes  fear  that  the  ansesthesia 

15  frequently  nominal  rather  than  real,  else 
why  so  many  and  ingenious  contrivances  for 
confining  the  animal  during  operations,  —  con- 
trivances that  are  not  made  use  of  in  surgical 
operations  upon  human  beings,  their  immo- 
bility being  secured  by  profound  anaesthesia. 


ON  VIVISECTION.  15 

While  it  is  my  belief  that  the  majority  of 
vivisectors  pursue  their  work  out  of  ardent 
love  of  science,  or  desire  to  benefit  humanity 
(and  I  trust  they  carefully  and  conscientiously 
avoid  inflicting  needless  pain),  there  are  others 
who  seem,  seeking  useless  knoivledge,  to  he  Mind 
to  the  writhing  agony  and  deaf  to  the  cry  of 
pain  of  their  victims,  and  who  have  been  guilty 
of  the  most  damnable  cruelties,  luithout  the  de- 
nunciation by  the  public  and  the  profession 
that  their  ivickedness  deserves  and  demands. 
These  criminals  are  not  confined  to  Germany 
or  France,  to  England  or  Italy,  but  may  he 
found  in  our  oivn  country. 

Should  the  law  restrict  the  performance  of 
vivisection  ?  I  think  it  ought,  chiefly  as  an 
expression  of  public  sentiment  and  for  moral 
effect.  .  .  . 

That  restriction  ought  to  forbid  all  experi- 
ments upon  animals  made  without  luorthy 
objects;  and  in  every  case,  so  far  as  possible, 
the  animal  during  and  subsequent  to  the  oper- 
ation must  be  ^preserved  from  pain.  Original 
investigations,  very  often  a  euphemism  for 
vivisections,  may  seem  quite  fascinating  to  the 


16  ON   VIVISECTION. 

young  medical  student,  and  possibly  be  tbinks 
tbereby  to  find  a  sbort  road  to  fame :  tbe 
result  frequently  remains  in  tbe  embryonic 
condition  of  manuscript  read  cbiefly,  if  not 
exclusively,  by  tbe  autbor.  But  sucb  investi- 
gations ougbt  not  to  be  made  except  under 
tbe  directions  of  a  qualified  and  conscientious 
teacber,  wbo  will  see  tbat  tbey  bave  a  reason- 
able probability  of  usefulness,  and  tbat  tbey 
are  conducted  so  tbat  no  pain  or  the  least  pos- 
sible pain  is  inflicted.  Vivisection  is  in  more 
danger  from  ignorant,  rasb,  and  reckless  ex- 
perimenters tban  from  those  directly  hostile  to 
it.  I  cannot  think  that  vivisections  done  for 
teaching  purposes,  simply  showing  what  has 
been  proved  time  and  again  upon  hundreds 
and  thousands  of  victims,  are  justifiable,  unless 
anaesthesia  is  employed  not  merely  to  miti- 
gate, but  completely  to  abolish,  suffering  of 
the  animals.  If  tbe  rule  just  mentioned  is 
not  observed,  the  influence  of  such  experiments 
is  injurious  both  to  the  operator  and  to  the 
witnesses  of  the  operation. 


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